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Twitter updates rules to limit manipulation in 2018 US election

A little over a month before the US 2018 midterm elections, Twitter updated its rules to reduce manipulation of its platform. Among the changes, the company outlined the factors it would use to determine whether an account is fake and should be removed, provided an update on its automated detection and enforcement actions, and announced some changes to its user interface, which included reminding candidates to turn on two-factor authentication and encouraging US voters to register and vote. Among the factors that would flag accounts as fake were the use of fake or stolen avatar photos and stolen or copied profile biographies; and the distribution of hacked materials. In the first half of September 2018, Twitter challenged an average of 9.4 million accounts a week; the service said it was seeing a drop in the amount of reported spam messages from 17,000 to 16,000 per day between May and September.